Maybe you know some of the dangerous side effects of too much stress in your life — which can lead to such outcomes as weight gain, poor memory, and a whole host of mental and physical health issues. Life places many demands on us, affecting us in different ways and on many levels. Add to that, returning to ‘regular life’ after a year of a pandemic can also be hard! Start this new period of life fresh and renewed with a new ‘habit’. Incorporate ongoing massage to combat your stress! Rx Massage offers a wide range of therapeutic treatments for when you need that break.

You didn’t get to where you are in life without learning how to relieve stress along the way. But just because you’ve “been there, done that” doesn’t necessarily mean it is going to be easier this time around. Granted life experience will likely have taught you the old refrain, “this too shall pass” but that same life experience will also likely have taught you something about the active role you need to take to combat stress from time to time and how we could all stand to benefit from a stress-busting reboot.

I think we all know the dangerous side effects of too much stress in our lives. Stress is a major contributor to many poor health outcomes, such as diabetes, weight gain, hypertension, poor memory, and a whole host of mental health issues. Therefore, how we manage the stress in our lives, needs to be revisited with a fresh and new perspective, in the same way, we need to clean out and freshen up our closet every so often.

Below are my top 10 strategies to relieve stress and restore energy with a fresh look at some old favorites that are guaranteed to help you self-optimize for health and happiness in body, mind, and spirit.

1. Compartmentalize—Prioritization on Steroids

People think of the compartmentalizing tactic in different ways, and there are negative associations with this term. However, when I suggest that you compartmentalize to manage your stress—or better yet, relieve stress—what I am referring to is the idea that you block out certain parts of your life that are distracting you from what you need to do in your daily life.

For example, you are at work but also have some extraordinary stress in your private life due to ailing parents with no siblings to share in the caretaking. Managing this alongside your own family and professional responsibilities, which were already heavy enough, places an enormous amount of stress on you.

When you compartmentalize, you put up mental blinders to help you focus on the task in front of you with the knowledge that managing your parent’s living and financial situation will be handled in due time after work hours.

Learning how to block out these different realms of your life will help you prioritize and manage the work that is in front of you.

2. Get Outside, It’s Like Therapy

Simply getting outside in the fresh air will automatically bring down your stress levels and restore some lost energy. The research around this growing field known as ecotherapy is proving once again how powerful nature is and how we can improve our mental wellbeing along with our physical and spiritual health with time outdoors.

When you are outside, you are more likely to have increased activity levels and will be exposing yourself to the mood-boosting sun, which helps our body create vitamin D. Research on vitamin D indicates that those who are vitamin D deficient may be more susceptible to inflammatory illness, depression and lowered resistance to stress, and more and more of us are becoming vitamin D deficient across the United States.

Spending as little as 10 minutes outside every day can be enough to improve mood, mental focus, and decrease blood pressure. Think of the increased concentration and improved efficiency you will get as a return on investment that yields way better growth on your aptitude and attitude for life.

3. Do an Organization Reboot

We all know the secret to success is largely due to organization or at least some form of it. I would argue that organization is a process. We build structures to organize information and life events based on our current demands. Over the course of your life, this will vary and probably increase as your life becomes more complicated, which will force you to innovate and change things up as you go.

What was enough in college or your first job out of college may not be enough at this point in your life? Furthermore, many, many systems can help us organize, and too many can detract from their intended benefits.

Assessing and weeding out the unnecessary systems or consolidating from the many to one might just be the answer.

Is a family calendar on Google more efficient than the calendar hanging in the kitchen? Don’t just assume that the answer will be in tech. Sometimes the old-fashioned pen and paper is more practical and might also serve as a better physical reminder—think of the whiteboard in the kitchen vs the hidden “to-do list” on your smartphone with reminders that consistently fail.

Another strategy for your organization reboot is an organization self-assessment. First, what it is that you need help organizing, and what the intended outcome is? Is it for communication purposes—to make sure that everyone is on the same page—or is it to help you process and think about the workload in front of you? Answering these 2 questions will help you move forward as you think about what makes the most sense for you, your family, or your team at work.

Another way to approach an organization reboot is to ask other people how they stay organized. This is especially helpful when taking on new responsibilities that might come with a job change or a new family dynamic.

I did this in a new position I recently took and by collecting data on how other people approached their work (think of the complex systems in public education), I was able to create “a best practice” that worked for me and that I could share with my colleagues. Something that could earn you some extra kudos is a bonus, especially when you are the new kid on the block.

4. Engage Your Creative Brain

When we engage the creative parts of ourself we tap into the part of our brain that releases dopamine, which has a naturally calming, therapeutic effect. Needless to say, this will almost immediately help us to relax and will lower our stress levels. One of the premises for which art therapy has been well established.

In one study, in particular, it was found that after just 45 minutes of engaging with artistic materials, regardless of the level of production or artistic talent the person had, there was a notable decrease of cortisol in 75% of the participants.

Music therapy is another form of creative art that can relieve stress and restore our energy. Many of us use music to help us decompress or move into another part of our day or activity. Music also taps into this part of our brain that increases focus and can help us emulate the feeling or “vibe” we perceive in the music. As we know, upbeat music will help you feel more positive while slower music can help you feel more relaxed by easing some of the tension in your body.

There are tons of great playlists out there aimed at stress relief. The next time you are on your preferred music streaming service, test out a few and see which works for you. Needless to say, music is one of those things that we can have in the background while moving forward with other parts of our day.

Perhaps this is another area in need of a reboot that could enhance your stress relief routine.

5. Do You Need a Vacation or Weekend Away?

Vacation opportunities may not be as readily available as we would like. However, it doesn’t have to be a week in the tropics to feel the benefits of a short break from your everyday routine.

If we are optimizing our time with some of the above strategies, perhaps we might be able to sneak in that weekend getaway or even just a day trip with the family. Getting out of your everyday environment, especially when trying to build in some respite and relieve stress, can do wonders for our mind, body, and spirit.

We may love our homes, but they do represent the endless “to-do list” and remind us of all the things that contribute to our stress levels. Getting away from this environment where you can get outside and engage in some of your favorite activities with your favorite people will free your mind and your body.

 

Granted, COVID-19 has definitely hindered our road trip or vacation opportunities. However, with a little creativity, we can build in the little breaks that we need to relieve some stress, reconnect with the people who are important in our lives, and help us to feel ready for the next hurdle in front of us.

6. Meditation and Mindfulness, Make Them a Habit

Meditation and mindfulness can offer endless benefits to us emotionally and psychologically, which will naturally relieve stress. Many of those benefits include increased focus, relaxation, and a decrease in the mental clutter in your head.

One of the biggest challenges with mediation or mindfulness is that to feel the impact, we need to practice it consistently, which takes discipline. The people who are most successful at integrating mediation and mindfulness into their self-care and stress relief routines are people who build it into their daily practices.

And as is true with many strategies, we don’t need to spend hours doing it. Just 5 or 10 minutes a day can make a difference, but we do need to make sure we are doing it.

Maybe there is a 5 or 10-minute window at the end or beginning of your day where you could fit this consistently? There are lots of great apps to help guide you through your mediation with music and visualization.

7. Fight Off “Aloneliness” and Find Your Alone Time

I read an article recently about “aloneliness,” which is the opposite of loneliness. As an introvert, I have always been that person who replenishes her energy from time alone but never quite thought about the craving as a likening to loneliness for the introvert.

The benefits of alone time are science-backed and include those things that many times go out the window when we are stressed and overwhelmed—things like creativity, mental strength, and productivity. The COVID-19 pandemic has left many people without the opportunity to have their alone time, which could be another reason that you are feeling more stressed and less able to deal with your daily challenges.

You might need to be strategic, but you could build some alone time into your life with a walk outside to get lunch for example, which will also be incorporating strategy #2 on this list.

8. Find Balance in Your Life

Stress can turn our lives upside down and throw everything off-kilter. Finding your equilibrium, getting your bearings straight, and finding the balance in your life between the many demands of family, partner, work, and friends is essential.

If you are feeling increased stress, take a look at the demands around you and make sure that there is a balance between the different parts of your life—in particular, the areas where you find more nourishment for the soul.

Incorporating the well-known life coaching strategy “life wheel” is a great way to think about the different parts of your life to ensure that you are giving all areas the time and attention that they need.

9. Maintain Good Sleep Hygiene

It’s no secret that sleep can be your best friend or public enemy number one. As the saying goes, “what a difference a day can make” is in large part due to a restful night’s sleep. However, when we are stressed, sleep is one of the first things to get out of whack.

If you are going through a period of high stress, you are likely feeling an increase in outside or family demands. Finding the time to fit it all in may naturally creep into your sleeping hours or, on the other hand, the stress might keep you from being able to get a restful night’s sleep. Either of these two scenarios is a case where it might be good to take a look at your sleep routine and force you to be a little more protective of it.

Some of my go-to tips and strategies around maintaining healthy sleep hygiene are:

1. Plan ahead
2. Maintain your physical activity
3. Limit alcohol
4. Sleep in a cooler environment
5. Get plenty of fresh air

So, before you get to thinking that you can sleep “later,” remember that healthy people and well-balanced lives have a healthy amount of sleep in their lives.

10. Animal Love

There’s tons of research out there about the benefits of having a pet, in particular, a dog or a cat. Taking care of a pet or any member of the animal kingdom can have such a positive impact on our mood and psychological well-being that our brain releases a hormone known as oxytocin, dubbed the love hormone.We get this hormone from other nurturing (human) relationships as well, but we cannot underestimate the impact this can have on us when we care for and connect with one of our four-legged buddies. A case in point is the fact that many pet owners report feeling a connection to their pet that rivals that of any significant human connection and, in some cases, can even be more significant than a human-to-human connection.^[8]

Additionally, having a pet will likely promote other healthy habits. Some of which I spoke about above, such as being outside more often and increasing your physical activity. On a social level, connecting with friends and neighbors about your pet creates a shared connection—another protective factor in the fight against stress.

Bottom Line

Modern life places many demands on us which hits us in different ways during different periods of our lives. Maintaining our physical, mental, and spiritual well-being requires a fresh and renewed approach every so often.

If you take the time today—to take care of yourself for tomorrow by revamping the old worn-out items in your self-care toolbox—you will reap the benefits 20 fold! Learning how to relieve stress from our life is a process that we will need to revisit time and time again, each time getting better and better.

Reference: {https://www.lifehack.org/903519/how-to-relieve-stress-easily}

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Are you drained of all energy even though you’ve been sleeping well and appear to be in good health?

Being tired all the time is frustrating—especially when there’s no explanation for your energy drain. Luckily, one of the following 10 simple reasons might be the culprit of your fatigue…

Electronics Use before Bed

Let me put it this way; if you’re wired…well, you’ll stay wired for a while. It’s true, studies show that a growing body of evidence shows that using electronics before bedtime, like smartphones, laptops, computers, watching television or playing video games turns up the fight-or-flight response, keeping you in a state of stress. You may be unable to sleep due to increased blood pressure and pulse hours after using electronics. So unplug at least 3-hours prior to nighty-night time!

Feeling Blue Lately?

Depression is an emotional disorder that shows itself predominantly in unexplained fatigue, lack of appetite, and negative feelings—all which contribute to that lack of energy you might be feeling. Patients with depression should talk to a doctor and start a treatment plan to level mood and energy via exercise, counseling, and in some cases, prescription medication.

Poor Diet

Cutting calories may help you shed unwanted pounds, but inadequate nourishment will cause severe energy drain. The same goes for a diet full of refined sugars and carbohydrates—it will leave you beat! Instead, consume a well-balanced diet of fresh fruits and veggies, lean proteins, and complex carbohydrates to keep you fueled throughout the day. That means 3 meals, plus nutritious snacks too!

Lingering UTI or Yeast Infection

Usually, we ladies know when we have a yeast or urinary tract infection (UTI). However, if you’ve treated a UTI or yeast infection recently—it may be lingering even though you’re no longer experiencing symptoms. If the infection is still present, you may be feeling extreme fatigue. Talk to your doctor to ensure you eliminate the infection completely.

Sleep Apnea

Even though you think you’re sleeping soundly through the night, you might not be. You may be suffering from sleep apnea, a condition that briefly stops your breathing multiple times each night, disrupting your deep sleep even though you’re not aware of it. One way to know for sure is to ask your spouse—are you keeping him or her up at night with your sleep apnea snoring. If so, it may be time to lose weight, quit smoking, or consult a sleep clinic about using a CPAP device to keep your airways open during sleep.

Too Much Caffeine

Caffeine—in coffee, caffeinated teas, soda, energy drinks, certain medications, and chocolate—can provide the kick you need when you’ve suffered too little sleep. However, you can overdo it by drinking too much caffeine, resulting in accelerated heart rate, blood pressure, and ultimately, exhaustion. If you drink too much caffeine, you may need to cut back.

Thyroid Issues

Hypothyroidism results in an underactive thyroid, the gland responsible for controlling your metabolism (or the rate your body converts food to energy).  Those with hyperthyroidism have sluggish metabolisms, which leave them drained of energy and prone to weight gain. If you suspect a thyroid issue, ask your doctor to check your hormone levels.

You May Be Anemic

Anemia is a surefire way to feel fatigued—particularly for women who can become anemic due to blood loss from menstrual blood. Anemia causes a severe iron deficiency, which results in low blood cells count. And you require red blood cells to carry oxygen and energy to your tissues and organs. To combat anemia, incorporate some iron-rich foods, such as shellfish, beans, whole grain cereals, and beef liver into your weekly diet.

Diabetes

In the early stages of the condition, many people suffer from diabetes without even knowing it. Diabetes causes excess sugars to remain in the bloodstream because it can’t be transferred into insulin for cell absorption (and fuel).  This will result in total system fatigue. If you have a family history of diabetes or are overweight, talk to your doctor about getting tested.

Dehydration

A very simple and quick fix if you are feeling fatigued is to drink water. Dehydration is a common energy-zapper if you aren’t getting adequate liquids. One telltale sign of dehydration is your urine. If it’s dark yellow in color, you’re not well hydrated and you need to drink more water.

Reference: {https://www.activebeat.com/your-health/10-reasons-why-you-have-no-energy/}

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Let’s talk! We are here to help. Give us a call for a complimentary consultation. We would love to meet you.

Did you know there’s no prescription needed from a doctor to see us – but we will communicate your progress and treatment to your doctor if you’d like us too!
(949) 276-5401

Disclaimer — All the information that you find on our blogs and social media pages is for informational purposes only and is not intended to be used as your personal professional diagnosis, or treatment. Come and see us for your excellent, personalized care! https://rauschpt.net/

 

The saying “you snooze, you lose” is not necessarily true. Millions of adults lack a quality night’s sleep for several reasons. Some bring their worries from the day into bed with them, making it difficult to fall asleep and stay asleep throughout the night. Others go to bed too late in order to finish the tasks of the day or wake up too early to begin the tasks of the day ahead. It has even gotten to the point where some people feel guilty for sleeping more than a few hours at night. Although it may feel like sleeping can be a waste of precious time when the waking hours are too sparse to finish what needs to get done during the day, this is actually far from the truth. In fact, sleep is probably one of the best investments of your time.

The Benefits of Sleep

Do you know that sleep plays a significant role in your physical and mental wellbeing? Sleep is needed to support your immune system, tissue healing, pain regulation, and brain functioning.  For example, research shows that those getting 7-8 hours of sleep heal faster than those getting only a few hours of sleep at night. In other words, sleep helps your body heal and reduces your pain. Getting a good night’s sleep is also shown to lower your risk for heart disease, diabetes, and depression. Bottom line: without a good night’s sleep, you may suffer from increased pain, delayed healing, decreased quality of life, depression, anxiety, and much more.

Improving Sleep

Now that we know how beneficial sleep can be, how do we ensure a good night’s sleep? Here are 10 tips you should try to improve your sleep.

• Exercise regularly during the day – exercise shortens the time it takes to fall asleep, and is proven to be more effective than most sleep aid drugs.
• Get outside more during the day – exposure to daylight helps to keep your body’s natural time clock healthy, so it knows when it should be awake and it should be asleep.
• Reduce your screen time two hours before bed – the blue light from your screen (computer, TV, phone) tricks your body into thinking it’s daytime, so your body isn’t ready to go to bed when you turn the TV off at night.
• Set up a good sleeping environment – get a comfortable bed and pillow, install some black-out blinds(or get an eye mask), set the room temperature to ~67 degrees F, and get to sleep! 
• Set a sleeping schedule – try to go to bed and get up at the same time everyday to help your body find it’s natural inner clock.
• Avoid late night snacking – food provides your body with energy, so eating at night will give you energy and make it hard to fall asleep.
• Avoid caffeine late in the day – the effect of caffeine can last 6-8 hours, so it is recommended to avoid consuming caffeine past 3pm.
• Avoid drinking any fluids before bed – people often wake up with the urge to urinate from drinking too much fluids prior to bed. 
• Avoid taking long naps throughout the day – this will help your body stay on it’s natural sleeping rhythm.
• Relax and reduce stress before bed – put away your work, take a shower, clear your mind, meditate and breathe. 

Bottom Line

Sleep is a necessity to lead a healthy and happy life. There are several scientifically proven tricks to improve your sleep and thus, the overall quality of life.

Michelle Zens PT, DPT.

Let’s talk! We are here to help. Give us a call for a complimentary consultation. We would love to meet you.

Did you know there’s no prescription needed from a doctor to see us – but we will communicate your progress and treatment to your doctor if you’d like us too!
(949) 276-5401

Disclaimer — All the information that you find on our blogs and social media pages are for informational purposes only and are not intended to be used as your personal professional diagnosis, or treatment. Come and see us for your excellent, personalized care! https://rauschpt.net/

References:

Catherine F. Siengsukon, Mayis Al-dughmi, Suzanne Stevens. Sleep Health Promotion: Practical Information for Physical Therapists, Physical Therapy, Volume 97, Issue 8, August 2017, Pages 826–836, https://doi.org/10.1093/ptj/pzx057
Rudy Mawer. 17 Proven Tips to Sleep Better at Night, Healthline, November 2018. https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/17-tips-to-sleep-better#section3

Fitness research is ever evolving. There are new articles every time we turn around. So what is the latest and greatest. Outside Magazine decided to take a look at the past, present and future and create a list of the top 12 Fitness Rules.

As a group centred around outdoor enthusiast, they have taken their 37 years in the industry and come up with the following. Keep in mind that each person’s body is different, experiment and pay attention to how YOU respond. Read what Outside has listed as their top fitness trends.

Outside Magazine link